


Tempore crevit amore

by BeautifulSoup



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Blankets, Fluff, Gift Giving, Light Angst, M/M, Post-The Raven King, Relationship Discussions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 09:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7310215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeautifulSoup/pseuds/BeautifulSoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>As Ronan fastens the clasp, Adam realises that the watch is a dream thing. The closing is complicated in a way that Adam’s mind can’t quite comprehend but seems intuitive in Ronan’s hands. When it’s fastened safe on Adam’s wrist, it just looks like a regular watch strap. It looks expensive in a subtle kind of way; Quality, with no bells or whistles required. Confident enough in itself to not need to draw any attention.</em>
</p><p>Ronan gives Adam a gift. Adam thinks about it too much. They eventually talk about it, almost like grown-ups.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tempore crevit amore

The night before Adam goes to college, Ronan gives him a watch.

They sit close together on the swing seat on the porch, swaying gently in the warm night air. There had been a party earlier, soft and happy and nostalgic, but now Gansey, Blue and Henry have left, headed back to Monmouth and Fox Way and Litchfield House, and Declan’s taken Matthew back to the Aglionby dorms and headed who knows where himself. Opal’s off somewhere, probably curled up with the sleeping cows. The night, alive with fireflies real and dreamt, gives Adam a bittersweet pang when he remembers that tomorrow he’ll be leaving it all behind.

Ronan, warm and solid beside him, is quiet as he looks out over the fields, his fingers tangling absent-mindedly in the hair at the nape of Adam’s neck. It’s a casual intimacy that still makes Adam’s pulse flutter. He reaches out and finds Ronan’s other hand and threads their fingers together, rests their entwined hands on Ronan’s thigh. He only has to turn his head a little to brush a kiss over Ronan’s cheek.

“You’re thinking real loud over there,” he murmurs, not trusting the night not to break at anything louder.

Ronan’s breath stirs the hair at Adam’s temple as he sighs, but he doesn’t say anything.

Adam waits.

“I got you something,” Ronan says eventually, quiet and uncertain.

Adam feels his mood darken. They’ve fought over this already, when Adam had decided to save up to buy himself a cell phone, just a thirty dollar no-brand pre-pay from Target. He had come home pleased and satisfied, and had immediately been confronted by an inexplicably hurt Ronan who had wanted to know why Adam couldn’t have just asked him to dream one. It had escalated to yelling, and ended when Ronan had stormed out to the cow barn, slamming every door in his way.

Adam opens his mouth to object now, but Ronan’s hand tightening on his stops him. “No, just let me do this, okay?” There’s something in Ronan’s tone that makes Adam listen.

In a moment Ronan’s arm is gone from his neck and Adam’s hand is left lonely on Ronan’s thigh. Then Ronan is taking Adam’s left hand, bringing it across to him. Adam looks down as Ronan wraps a watch around his wrist. He lets him fasten it.

It has a simple brown leather band, and a clear, elegant face, nothing like the over-expensive, over-complicated monstrosities that Gansey and Henry favour. As Ronan fastens the clasp, Adam realises that the watch is a dream thing. The closing is complicated in a way that Adam’s mind can’t quite comprehend but seems intuitive in Ronan’s hands. When it’s fastened safe on Adam’s wrist, it just looks like a regular watch strap. It looks expensive in a subtle kind of way; Quality, with no bells or whistles required. Confident enough in itself to not need to draw any attention.

The weight of it is strange, like gravity works a bit differently on it, but it’s comforting in its heaviness. The watch is still warm from Ronan’s body, and awareness of that flows through Adam.

When it’s fastened safe, Ronan’s fingers linger. One hand grips Adam’s wrist loosely, the other trailing up the delicate skin over the veins on the inside of his wrist, over his palm, over his fingers, sliding their fingers together. Adam’s heart leaps as Ronan brings his hand up to brush his lips over his knuckles.

Adam lets out a breath, and Ronan looks up at him.

“Thanks,” he says, his voice shakier than he thought it would be. Ronan doesn’t say anything, just takes both of Adam’s hands in his and kisses him, long and soft and slow.

 

*

 

There’s a perpetual strangeness to the watch that Adam begins to notice during his first couple of weeks at college. The warmth he had felt when Ronan had given it to him never leaves. It’s always warm, sometimes only a degree or so above skin temperature, others more like a cup of coffee cradled close to the skin. It’s never hot enough to burn or to be uncomfortable.

Adam studies it when it grows warmer during lectures, when he’s out at social events with his suitemates. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern to it, not at first, but Adam is a Magician and is good at making connections.

Nights are when it gets warmest, and it feels like Ronan’s hand gripping snugly around his wrist as he slips off to sleep. On Sunday mornings there’s another burst of heat, not as lingering as the evenings but just as warm. He starts to think it’s predicting his phone activity, since it always warms by another degree or two before his phone buzzes with a text or call from Ronan. It usually starts again an hour or two before their scheduled skype dates. It’s always warmest when he can see Ronan on his computer screen or hear his voice over the airwaves.

 When he figures it out, he can’t believe it took him so long: The watch gets warm whenever Ronan thinks about him.

It’s never cold.

When his classes start in earnest and Adam starts working flat-out on his coursework, he notices something else about the watch.

Towards the end of his fourth week, he’s been studying all day, and he feels his eyes hot and tired as he tries to focus on his book in the dim light from his lamp. He’s read the same paragraph at least three times but is still not taking it in when the watch vibrates. It isn’t jarring, isn’t intrusive, and Adam puts it down to imagination fuelled by distraction and tiredness. He goes back to his book, and the watch buzzes again, a little stronger so he has no doubt that this time something _did_ happen. He frowns at the watch, but doesn’t see anything different about it. It _is_ getting late, though, and he has an early class in the morning. He finishes up and goes to bed, and the watch does nothing but warm his wrist.

The next time it happens is near the end of his shift at the garage near campus. As he finishes up fitting the engine back into an ancient Transit and thinks about going back to study, the watch gives a shudder against his wrist. He sighs as he tightens the last bolt. He’s tired, and his muscles are weary from hefting the engine block around the workshop even with the help of the pulleys, so he sighs and just goes back to his dorm.

 

*

 

At Thanksgiving he goes back to the Barns. He leaves Boston early and arrives at Singer’s Falls late. The fireflies still fill the air around the Barns, and despite his weariness from the drive Adam feels his heart lift at the sight of them. As he pulls up, the front door opens and fills with Ronan’s silhouette. Adam gets out of the shitbox and doesn’t even shut the door as he rushes forward. Ronan meets him halfway, and the impact knocks the breath out of both of them and they’re laughing before they’ve got it back. Adam’s hands dig into Ronan’s back, find his neck, his jaw, his cheek, as he kisses him fiercely. Ronan’s hands are strong and sure on his back, and for the first time ever he feels like he’s come _home_.

“Adam!” They pull away at the sound of Matthew’s voice, and in a minute he’s in the hug with them, golden and shining.

“We were having a _moment_ , doofus,” Ronan says, pushing Matthew away with a hand on his head, but he’s laughing.

“Dude, you were having a _moment_ for like three hours. Come on in already.” Matthew turns his smile on Adam and holds out his fist. Adam bumps it, and carries on with the complicated choreography Matthew had designed for them months ago.

“It’s been three months,” Adam says as they walk to the house, his bag over his shoulder. “How have you _grown_?” Matthew just grins at him and shrugs.

“Genes,” he says, his round cheeks pink in the cool air. Adam wonders what kind of genes Matthew has, really, as Opal appears and starts tugging at his hand.

 

Sleeping with Ronan warm and solid beside him is everything he had missed. He still can’t believe the gentleness of Ronan in these moments, the softness of his face. His hair is growing out, and Adam can’t help himself running his fingertips through his curls. Ronan’s hands slide warm over Adam’s waist, up over his ribs, his chest, rest over his heart.

“The watch,” Adam says, although he had meant to say something completely different. Ronan just makes a muffled sound of interest from where his face is buried in Adam’s shoulder. “What’s it for?”

“Telling the time, dingus,” Ronan says to Adam’s jaw. Adam snorts, and gives him a shove for good measure. Ronan just fastens the edges of his grin to the skin of Adam’s neck.

“You are such an asshole,” Adam gasps. “I meant with- with the- will you _stop that_ when I’m trying to talk to you?”

“Am I being a distraction?” Ronan’s smile is wicked when he pulls away. Adam tries his best to glare.

“Fuck it, Ronan, I’m trying to be serious here,” he sighs, because suddenly he is serious, shuffling a bit out of Ronan’s reach and resting his left arm between them, making sure the watch is obvious. He hadn’t realised how serious he was. “I figured out the warmth of it, I’ve figured out that it tells me when I’m pushing myself too hard. But how does it work? Do you… can you…?” He didn’t want to think about what it would mean if Ronan could see what was happening to him in Boston, if he was the one pushing the buttons that made it vibrate and warm up.

“What?” Ronan pushes himself up so he can look at Adam. His face is open and confused, just for a moment, and then it shuts down. “You think I’m fucking _spying_ on you, Parrish?”

“Ronan, that’s not what I’m-”

“Fuck you, alright?” Ronan throws the covers back and gets up, yanking some sweatpants on. “I’m not doing this now.” The door has slammed behind him before Adam is fully aware of what’s happening. He blinks dumbly at the closed door for a moment before throwing himself down on the bed with a sigh.

He’s done it again. Brought something up in the wrong way, and between them he and Ronan have got it twisted all out of shape. He can feel the anger coursing in his own blood, but at least he now knows well enough to leave it to settle. He rolls over onto his front, pressing his nose to Ronan’s pillow and breathing in the scent of him. He lays there for what might be five minutes, might be ten, however long it takes for his heart to stop hammering, before pulling his jeans on and padding softly downstairs, trying not to wake Matthew or Declan.

Ronan isn’t in the living room or the kitchen, the sitting room or the dining room. Adam eventually spots him through the glass of the front door, standing out on the front porch, arms wrapped tight around his bare torso in the cool night air. His face is furious, and Adam isn’t sure if he’s trembling from anger or from cold. He doubles back to grab a blanket from the back of the living room sofa.

When he opens the door and steps outside Ronan doesn’t even glance at him. He drapes the blanket over Ronan’s shoulders, and Ronan only makes a half-hearted attempt to shrug it off. Adam isn’t sure what to say.

He doesn’t want to apologise. He knows his concern is genuine, and Ronan has just misinterpreted it, but to lay the blame on Ronan’s reaction would be a sure way to escalate the fight. Adam is only home for four days, and he doesn’t want that. So he just stands silently beside Ronan in the dark.

After a few minutes he gets cold. Based on the fact that Ronan is still standing beside him and hadn’t stomped off to sleep in the barn as soon as Adam had appeared, he assumes it’s safe to press his side against Ronan’s to share the blanket. Ronan offers him half with a grunt.

“I just hate that I can’t do anything without you fucking overanalysing it,” Ronan says finally, tired.

 _That’s not true_ , Adam almost says, but stops himself.

“I don’t fucking know how it works, alright?” Ronan looks at him from the corner of his eye. “In the dream…” He sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “In the dream it just let you know when I was thinking about you and didn’t let you work yourself to death. That’s it.”

“So you can’t tell-”

“No, I don’t get a fucking thing from it, okay?” Ronan’s voice sounds oddly raw. Adam isn’t sure if it’s tiredness or if Ronan is more upset than he had realised. “I don’t have a fucking, I don’t know, implant or anything. I don’t know shit about what you’re doing there other than what you tell me.”

Adam sighs. Now that he’s been reassured he’s more aware of Ronan shaking beside him, of his white-knuckle grip on the edge of the blanket. He steps a bit closer to press his chilled arm to Ronan’s.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he says after a moment, quiet. He hears crickets out in the fields, although it’s definitely too cold for them now.

“Fuck, Adam.” Heaving a sigh, Ronan turns to rest his head on Adam’s shoulder. “I know, I just…” Adam knows, can tell from the strain in Ronan’s voice. He grabs Ronan’s side of the blanket and wraps his arms around Ronan’s back so they’re both enveloped.

Adam closes his eyes and rests his chin on Ronan’s shoulder, lets Ronan’s breath against his neck soothe his nerves.

“I don’t want to fight.” Ronan is so quiet that Adam wouldn’t have heard him had he been on his other side. Adam turns his head and brushes his lips against Ronan’s ear.

“There _is_ a first time for everything.”

Ronan snorts, but Adam can feel his smile. “Asshole.”

“Coming inside? I’m freezing my ass off here.”

“Sure,” Ronan says, a smile in his voice. “Don’t want that.” His hands slide down the back of Adam’s jeans.

“You’re incorrigible,” Adam says, his lips at the sharp edge of Ronan’s jaw.

“Alright, Gansey.”

“New rule,” Adam says with a groan. “Never mention Gansey when you’ve got your hands down my pants.” Ronan laughs, quiet and loose, and squeezes Adam’s ass a bit harder.

“Why?” Ronan’s teeth scrape his neck. “Does it turn you on? I’ve got one of his polo shirts around here somewhere. I could put it on if you like.”

“Hell no,” Adam laughs and pushes him away. “Although, I’ve always had a thing for boat shoes.”

The laugh he draws from Ronan with that makes his stomach swoop. It is loud and light and carefree. Adam is suddenly, viciously glad that he followed Ronan out and hadn’t left him to stew overnight.

Adam steps back, tugging Ronan back inside. When they get back to the room he lets Ronan press him into the mattress with his hands and his hips and his mouth.

“Could you dream another one?” Adam asks later as sleep pulls at his edges.

“Mmm?” Ronan shuffles to face him, eyes squinted in the darkness. He drapes an arm over Adam’s middle and pulls him closer.

“Another watch, or something like it.” Adam settles down against him, glad of where his night-cool skin is touching Ronan’s. “For you. That would let you know when I’m thinking about you.”

“Dunno,” Ronan mutters, nuzzling Adam’s armpit. “Can try.” He lets out a contented sigh and rests his head on Adam’s shoulder. “You need a shower.”

“Your fault,” Adam murmurs. He doesn’t hear Ronan’s reply.

 

In the morning Adam wakes up with a ring on his chest. It’s made from a dark metal that might be titanium but probably isn’t, and looks large enough to fit a man’s finger. Ronan is still beside him, his eyebrows drawn together in a way that tells Adam he’s awake but frozen. His hand rests on Adam’s chest just below the ring. As Adam thinks of it, the ring on his chest grows warmer.

Ronan draws in a sharp breath, his body relaxing as he exhales. Adam waits for him to open his eyes before picking up the ring to examine it more closely. He doesn’t miss Ronan’s cheeks turning pink. The ring is smooth, and Adam can’t quite work out if it’s matte or if it has a sheen. There’s a light engraving of a vine around the outside, and an inscription on the inside. Adam peers at it in the morning light.

“ _Amor vincit omnia_ ,” he reads, and feels his heart leap. Ronan moves to take the ring from him, but Adam reaches his hand away. The ring is hot in his palm.

“C’mon, Parrish, give it,” Ronan mutters, swatting inefficiently at Adam’s arm.

Using his free hand, Adam grabs Ronan’s wrist. This stills him. Adam brings Ronan’s knuckles to his mouth and kisses each one in turn before holding his hand out flat.

“Fair’s fair,” he whispers, and slides the ring onto Ronan’s middle finger. It fits perfectly. Ronan takes in a shaky breath. When he releases it, it’s still shaking.

“Christ, Parrish,” Ronan breathes, looking at the ring in amazement. “Are you hot for me or something?” He meets Adam’s eye with a glint.

Adam doesn’t answer him, only smiles as he slides his leg over Ronan’s thigh and his mouth over his jaw.

It’s late when they make it downstairs, Adam’s hair still damp from the shower and his mind still light and hazy from Ronan. He can’t quite bring himself to untangle his fingers from Ronan’s as they enter the kitchen. Matthew gives them a bright but muffled welcome from where he’s wolfing pancakes at the table, and Declan watches them steadily over his coffee and phone. Adam feels there should be some awkwardness here somewhere, but can’t seem to find it. It might be hidden in the small line between Declan’s eyebrows, but that’s soon erased when Matthew asks what they’re doing with the day, when Opal careens around the corner to climb on the table.

The morning is light and airy, Ronan’s smile loose and easy as his hip bumps Adam’s while he makes them all coffee.

Adam’s watch is steadily warm against his wrist all day, the heat of it matched whenever he takes Ronan’s hand.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _Amor vincit omnia_ means _love conquers all things_. Ronan, you nerd.
> 
> Apologies for shitty Latin, but the title is from Virgil and the engraving is from Ovid, both are how I found them. I haven't done Latin since I was 11, so Google Translate is my best checking tool.


End file.
